Rep. Steven LaTourette (R-Ohio) on Wednesday said Republicans had been “whooped” in
negotiations to avert the “fiscal cliff.”
The centrist Ohio lawmaker, who is leaving Congress after
this term, said GOP lawmakers who backed the tax bill, which passed the House and Senate on New Year's Day, had no choice but to vote for the measure.
“If there was no deal, taxes would have gone up on every
American and the Speaker’s stated objective was always to spare as many people
in the country as he could from the tax increase,” said LaTourette, explaining his vote in favor, during an interview on CBS's "This Morning." “At the end
of the day, we got whooped.”
The bill passed on Jan. 1 by both chambers extends the
expiring Bush-era tax rates for individuals earning up to $400,000 and
households earning up to $450,000. The deal also postpones the across-the-board
sequester cuts until March.
One-hundred and fifty-one House Republicans voted against
the bill, with 85 voting for the measure. Conservative Republicans revolted against the bill, which the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) said would add $4 trillion to the deficit, arguing that it failed to address spending cuts.
LaTourette said he was dismayed that the White House and
lawmakers had once again punted on the tough choices needed to rein in the
deficit.
“It’s outrageous and it’s because no one will make the
difficult decisions necessary to get this thing done. It is a problem that
requires a $4 [trillion] to $6 trillion fix. Quite frankly, the president won’t show
the leadership to get it done on the entitlement side; we’ve been slow to the
dance on the revenue side,” he said.
“We all knew the president was going to get his way. He
campaigned on raising taxes, he wanted to raise taxes, he wins,” LaTourette
continued. “But now it’s time for people to face up to the fact that it’s not
just on the revenue side, you really have to cut some of these programs that
have been around since the Great Depression and figure out how to make them
viable and sustainable.”
LaTourette jokingly
added of the late vote in the Senate on Wednesday morning that “nothing good happens after midnight on New Year’s Eve.”
Asked if Republicans would have been better off accepting
the president’s initial offer, which included deficit cuts, earlier in
negotiations, LaTourette said no.
"The president was never serious about spending cuts,” he
said. “This required a big deal on taxes and spending and everybody was afraid
to make the deal."
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